Living Wage Week: breakfast event

09 November 2017

The real Living Wage movement’s annual celebration is taking place this week (5th-11th November). The new Living Wage rates, based on the real cost of living, have been announced today (Monday 6th November) and there will be events and celebrations up and down the country.

More than 150,000 workers have received an inflation-beating pay rise as the UK living wage, which is paid voluntarily by more than 3,600 employers, is increased against a backdrop of rising transport, food and housing costs.

The pay rate will rise 3.6% to £8.75 per hour around the UK and 4.6% to £10.20 in London, giving a wages boost to workers at companies which have adopted the measure.

The Living Wage Foundation are the organisation at the heart of the movement that believes a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. The Foundation accredits companies who voluntarily go further than the government’s minimum and pay all their staff the real Living Wage by awarding them with the Living Wage Employer logo.

There are now over 3500 Living Wage Employers including 30% of the FTSE 100 and many household names such as Nationwide, Aviva, IKEA, ITV, Google, Nestle and Brewdog.

According to the Living Wage Foundation, more and more businesses are realising that paying the Living Wage is not only the right thing to do, it also makes good business sense.

They said: "93% of Living Wage Employers reported benefits to their business since accrediting, including increased productivity, motivation and retention, as well as reduced recruitment costs and better brand differentiation. The Living Wage is good for business and good for society."

The Living Wage Foundation has been working in partnership with a range of companies in the cleaning and facilities management industry, including ISS, OCS and Sodexo, in order to grow the Living Wage and create responsible, sustainable jobs. They understand that it is not always possible for providers who operate in low pay industries to implement the Living Wage for all the contracts they deliver. However Service Providers can communicate to clients that the Living Wage is always an option.

The Service Provider Recognition scheme celebrates organisations who commit to supplying a Living Wage bid alongside every market rate submittal to all their prospective and current clients. This means the client always has the choice to implement the Living Wage at the point of tender. The providers they work with have seen the benefits the Living Wage can bring and would like to see it in more of their customer contracts.

In order to find out more about this scheme and how you can work with the Living Wage Foundation you may wish to come along to their business breakfast event as part of Living Wage Week. This event is exclusively for the service provider industry and is an opportunity to highlight the business benefits of working with the Living Wage Foundation to improve the quality of services and jobs, as well as tacking any barriers in making this change. 100 service providers are now formally part of the Foundation’s Recognised Service Provider scheme and this will be a chance to learn more about their work and exciting developments.